How one family avoided a guardianship fight

The problem

A family we had worked with three years earlier died in a head-on collision on I-10 outside Casa Grande. Both parents in their late thirties. Two kids, ages 6 and 9. Grandparents on both sides, all four still living, all four willing to raise the grandchildren.

Without documentation, this is where Arizona courts hold extended guardianship hearings. Both sets of grandparents file. Relatives line up to testify. The kids spend months in a holding pattern while a judge tries to decide who can provide the best home.

That didn't happen here, because the parents had filed clearly written guardianship nominations in their wills and had a funded trust in place.

What we did

Three years before the accident, the parents signed wills that nominated the wife's parents as primary guardians for both children. The husband's parents were named as alternates. The nomination was detailed. It explained why the wife's parents (who lived in Mesa, in the same school district) were the primary choice, and it documented that both sets of grandparents agreed to the structure.

We also built them a revocable trust that held a $2 million term life insurance policy on each parent, the house, and the brokerage accounts. The trustee was the wife's brother, a CPA in Tempe, specifically named because he wasn't a grandparent. The intention was to separate the daily care of the children from the management of the money.

The wife's parents were named as primary guardians of the person. The brother was named as trustee. Distributions for the kids required trustee approval, with standard HEMS (health, education, maintenance, support) provisions to guide the decisions.

The result

The guardianship hearing after the accident took a single afternoon. Both sets of grandparents agreed to the structure their children had written down three years earlier. The court followed the nomination.

The trust, funded by the life insurance, covers all expenses for raising the children. The wife's parents request funds from the trustee and receive them within a few days each month. Major expenses (college, a first car, medical costs) get discussed and approved by the trustee in advance.

The grandparents on the husband's side see the kids regularly. The extended family is intact. The arrangement is exactly what the parents would have chosen.